Dinosaur farts to solve energy crisis

An adult Tyrannosaurus Rex on a rich meat diet produced more than three tonnes of potent bilge gas a day, enough to power 1,200 homes.

Now energy company researchers have developed a machine that can open a ‘time window’ into the prehistoric era, at the exact moment when a megalosaurus or similar large saurian is about to guff off.

The highly flammable lizard flatus is then captured in specially-reinforced cylinders and transported back to the present day.

Quantum physicist Professor Tom Booker said: “In the era of the dinosaurs, the prevalent sound was farting. These immense lizards ate either exclusively plants or meat, they lumbered around letting rip with energy-rich trouser eggs.

“When these great beasts trumped, the ground literally shook.

“We’re currently researching which is the most potent – the deadly dog food nostril­-burners ripped out by carnivores, or the trumpeting heavier-­than­-air marsh­ bombs chuffed out by the vegetarian sauropods.

“The public can be reassured that it is impossible for living dinosaurs to pass through the time window, though my late colleague Dr Hobbs was unfortunately sucked into a brontosaurus while bravely trying to attach a containment pod to its anus.”

Environmental groups say the scheme has numerous risks, from the danger of lethal prehistoric farts escaping into our atmosphere to the fear that even minor changes to the past could affect the present.

A Greenpeace spokesman said: “It might not seem that the Bronx cheer of a stegosaurus could affect the future, but history could take a radically different course without that filthy stench in the Triassic air.

“We’ll probably wake up in a parallel world where we’re all apes and Hitler’s won the war, as usual.”